THIS IS WHAT I KNOW

This is what I know:

I was an elementary school teacher.  I did not get paid the big bucks!  I cared tremendously about the kids I taught.  During the course of my teaching career, I bought many, many schoolroom supplies,  I arranged for haircuts, snacks, and tutoring during my lunch time and after school, bought some new clothes for kids who literally were wearing pj's with a sweatshirt over them.  I did not get paid the big bucks!  What I did was prepare a new generation with knowledge, aspirations, a sense of community, a willingness to work hard and, I hope, the will to succeed at whatever they wanted to do in life.  I did not get paid the big bucks!  I did get paid in the satisfaction that "my kids" got the best I had and thrived.  And I did not get paid the big bucks everyone thinks teachers get.  They get paid way too little for what they are entrusted to do!

Likewise police officers and firefighters.  They lay their lives on the line for yours.  They should be paid way more than CEOs who do nothing more than push some papers, bark some commands, play golf and expect to be paid millions for screwing the public.  See Big Oil companies.

I, like many others, do not believe oil companies need government subsidies nor do they believe the CEOs who argue for them need or deserve the millions they are paid.  And for Big Oil executives to plead their case before Congress is disgusting.  They show just how out of touch with the human race they are, the greedy bastards.

Nor do I believe that making Medicare into a voucher program is a good thing.  Seventy, eighty and ninety year old people don't want to shop around for health insurance which will end up costing them so much more than the amount of the voucher. You don't actually think the health insurance companies are going to offer all the services seniors need at a reasonable price, do you?  And people eligible for Medicare sign up for it the minute they are able.  I was so happy to stop paying almost $1500 per month for my husband and me to get less and less coverage each year.  Seniors cannot wait to get rid of their private health insurance premiums: they pay too much for too little.

The low tax bracket that millionaires enjoy now does not translate to creating jobs.  What it does mean is that these rich creeps simply put their millions into off-shore accounts.  They buy more "stuff."  They don't create jobs.  They need to pay their fair share of taxes instead of enjoying the myriad tax loopholes which allows them to pay nothing.  Raise that tax bracket.  They'll never even notice it.

Being poor is not a disease nor is it brought on by laziness.  To think that way means you have your head up your ass!

All kinds of people have lost their jobs, from laborers to educators to business people.  They are not lazy if they haven't found a job to replace what they had.  Anyone who thinks that has his/her head up his/her ass!

No federal funds pay for abortion.  Defunding Planned Parenthood means millions of poor people, women especially, now have nowhere to go for preventive medical care. PP provided breast cancer screenings, pap tests, tests for testicular cancer, prenatal care, general health care.  It is disgusting for state legislatures/governors to take away the only place where it was affordable for so many people to get health care.

This I know:  Republicans are dragging this country back to the 18th century, taking away women's rights, slashing the Constitution into shreds by negating several parts of it (i.e. the 4th amendment), wanting this country to be Christian and white, denigrating all others through lies and innuendo, and generally making this country into a second class oligarchy.  We will be looking more and more like Soviet Russia was.

This I know:  Republicans make me feel ashamed of my country because they exhibit such viciousness and stupidity.  Republicans are two-faced hypocrites.  Republicans hate so many people who are not like them.  Republicans do not do things for or believe in the best interests of the United States.

This I know:  Republicans need to be reprogrammed!